Mixing Clownfish

[Jase_Parmer]

I have always kept only one type of clownfish in a tank at a time. My next tank is going to be a 300. I would assume that would be big enough to mix and match some different types in. I am curious though if anyone here has any experience with this however.

I would love to get three of those onyx percs and three false percs and have them not group up into one big group, but remain two small groups.

 

[Carlo]

3 of any clownfish is not good long term. 2 is better and they will normally pair off. You have to watch mixing different types of clownfish too. I've never mixed onyx percs so I can't help you on that front.

I presently have a pair of true percs, a pair of false percs and a pair of clarkiis in the same tank. Both the true and false percs are considered passive fish as far as clownfish go while the clarkii are medium aggressive.

Carlo

 

[Jase_Parmer]

I assume they don't mix in your tank, but stay seperated?

 

[Carlo]

Actually they sort of school together. The true and false percs can often times be seen swimming together. Both of these pairs typically (in my tank) mix and match. It seems 2 are always nearby swimming together but sometimes a true and false perc swim together. The Clarkiis don't do this and are always together as a pair. But at the same time the Clarkiis don't mess with any of the other fish. Sometimes all 6 (3 pairs) are together in the same area of the tank too. Maybe worth noting is my Clarkiis are twice as big as the other percs and of course have different colorations.

I did do a lot of reading on RC to see what type of percs people had in their tanks together before I tried it. Some people had both true and false percs together and yet others had Clarkiis and either true or false percs together. So I figured it was doable. I added the false percs to my true percs and then added the Clarkiis a few weeks later. I did learn (as pretty much already knew) that tomato and maroon clown are too aggressive and should be kept as the only clowns in the tank. I wasn't really interested in the onyx percs so I don't recall if I read anything on them or not concerning this. Sorry about that.

The tank I originally had them all in was a 120g (48x18x30) with about 20+ other fish in the tank. I have since moved these fish to a 44g hex (holding tank) and now have all the percs in a 20L QT tank before they go into my 265.

For what it's worth, I've noticed that if you have a medium/high stocked tank (fish wise) that sometimes you can get away with mixing fish that otherwise shouldn't be mixed. I think this is due to the fact that there is more activity in the tank and this is a distraction to the fish. It almost seems like the distration stops some of the otherwise aggressive behaviour. This is only an observation of my own and has no scientific basis, does it make any sense? Of course having to many fish can stress the fish out so it's a balancing act.

With the 300 you are planning you should definitely have the space for territories so you can probably get away with some mix and match fish that normally wouldn't be considered a good match together. If you plan on keeping your present tank (having 2 tanks) you could try this set of pairs out in a separate 10 or 20 gallon tank during the "move". Just put your present pair in the 10-20g tank and then purchase the new pair of onyx percs. If they get along OK then you are set. If they don't get along you can easily pull one pair out and move them to the "other tank". It's a lot easier to do this in a 10 or 20 gallon then trying to catch those suckers in a big tank if they don't get along or cause trouble!

Carlo

 

[Jase_Parmer]

For what it's worth, I've noticed that if you have a medium/high stocked tank (fish wise) that sometimes you can get away with mixing fish that otherwise shouldn't be mixed. I think this is due to the fact that there is more activity in the tank and this is a distraction to the fish. It almost seems like the distration stops some of the otherwise aggressive behaviour. This is only an observation of my own and has no scientific basis, does it make any sense? Of course having to many fish can stress the fish out so it's a balancing act.

Yeah...I have noticed this too. I thought it was kind of odd. Thank you for your very informative post. I am going to give it a try. I wish I could stick a few Maroons in there too. I wish someone would come up with a good way to give some valiums to some of these more aggressive fish...

 

[Carlo]

I had previously thought the Clarkii were a medium aggressive fish (clown wise) but was just reading an old mag (Tropical Fish May 2004) and it said that the Clarkiis are the most aggressive of the clown fish.

I'm not sure what that's worth but since I've been able to get the pair of clarkies to coexist with the true and false percs maybe a matched pair of Maroons could be mixed with a pair of percs too. I think the key was with the percs. Both the true and false percs are pretty passive.

Carlo